Simple Ways to Optimize & Increase Your Website Speed

A high number of visitors, low bounce rates, more conversions, engagement, higher organic search rankings, and a better user experience are all signs of a high-performing website. You will lose money and your reputation if your website is slow. You will have a favourable impact on your marketing and sales processes by lowering page load time. You’ll attract more qualified leads who can be converted into customers as a result of the increased traffic. We’ll provide you tips on how to increase your website speed and performance in this article.

Let’s look at how website performance optimization affects the most important aspects of website success:

Conversion: The conversion rate of your website is an important aspect in the success of your business since it indicates whether or not your visitors are doing what you want them to do.

Visibility: The time it takes for your website to load has an impact on how easy users can locate it. A poorly performing website provides a poor user experience, and as a result, it receives less attention in search results.

Usability: Customer loyalty is directly influenced by website usability factors like as page speed, load time, and responsiveness to user demands.

Guidelines for Increasing the Speed of Your Website

You can begin improving your website once you’ve tested its speed. There are numerous techniques to speed up your website, and we’ve compiled a list of the most effective.

1. Make use of a CDN (Content Delivery Network) (CDN)

A content delivery network (CDN) is a group of web servers located throughout the world that provide web content to end users based on their location. All user queries are routed to the same hardware when the website is hosted on a single server. User requests are forwarded to the nearest server with CDN. As a result, content is sent to users more quickly, and websites load more quickly.

2.Transfer your website to a more secure web host

Shared hosting– Shared hosting is the most common type of hosting utilised all over the world. It’s the quickest and cheapest way to get your site up and running in no time for a little charge. It is critical to select a fast web hosting provider in order to achieve optimal results. This is the primary reason why shared hosting is slower than VPS or dedicated hosting.

Dedicated servers and virtual private servers are substantially faster. For content delivery, VPS makes use of numerous servers. With a VPS, you share the server with other users while having your own virtual server with your own specifications that do not affect other users.

3. Reduce the number of plugins you’re using

Plugins are a standard part of every website. They include third-party-recommended features. Unfortunately, the more plugins you have, the more resources you’ll need to keep them running. The number of add-ons grows over time, albeit some of them may become obsolete. We recommend that you go through all of the add-ons you’ve installed and uninstall any that aren’t necessary. To begin, run the speed tests on your page to determine which plugins are slowing it down. The amount of plugins installed, as well as the quality of those plugins, affects the website’s speed. The ideal answer is to keep only the goods that are absolutely necessary and to ensure that they are kept up to date.

4. Optimize the size of your website’s photos

On your product pages, use a lot of photos, images, and graphics to increase engagement. The disadvantage of employing images is that they are typically huge files that cause a website to load slowly.

Compressing photos with tools like ImageOptim, JPEGmini, or Kraken is the best option to minimise image size without sacrificing quality. The technique may take some time, but it is well worth the effort. Another method for reducing image size is to use the and attributes of sensitive HTML images, which modify the image size based on the user’s display characteristics.

We also have detailed article on ‘IMAGE SEO OPTIMIZATION IN WORDPRESS‘

5. Reduce the quantity of JavaScript and CSS files on your computer

When users wish to access specific files on your website that have a lot of JavaScript and CSS files, a lot of HTTP requests are made. These requests are processed one at a time by the visitor’s browser, slowing down the site’s functionality. Your website will undoubtedly speed up if you reduce the number of JavaScript and CSS files. Try to combine all JavaScript files into one, as well as all CSS files. The overall number of HTTP requests will be reduced as a result of this.

6. Make use of webpage caching

Caching is the technique of storing the most recent version of your website on your server and displaying it until it is updated. This means that the web page isn’t reprocessed for each individual user. It is not necessary for the searched web page to submit database requests every time it is accessed.

The methods for website caching vary depending on the platform on which your website is created. You can use the W3 Total Cache or W3 Super Cache plugins for WordPress, for example. You can also configure caching in your general settings if you’re utilising a VPS or dedicated server.

7. Reduce the use of web fonts

In online design, web fonts have grown highly popular. The use of online fonts, however, has a negative impact on page playback performance. Web feeds increase the number of HTTP queries sent to external resources.

The steps below will assist you in reducing the size of your online font traffic:

• For current browsers, use WOFF2 formats;

• Only the character sets used on the site should be included.

• Select only the styles you require.

8. Error 404 detection

“Page not found” is the meaning of a 404 error. When the visible content of a page no longer exists, the host sends this notification to browsers or search engines. After you’ve identified all of the 404 errors, you’ll need to assess the traffic they produce. You can leave these dead links alone if they don’t bring any new visitors and so don’t waste any server resources. If these pages continue to receive traffic, try implementing redirects for external connections and updating internal link addresses.

Conclusion

Improving the performance of a website can be tough, especially given the wide range of devices, connectivity, browsers, and operating systems, but it will have a big beneficial influence on your business if your business matters. Using your website as one of your primary channels for communicating with your consumers

Also, keep in mind that this is a process with no apparent beginning or end. You don’t have to make all of the proposed modifications right now. Take the time to analyse the monitoring tool’s findings, make adjustments to the website, and evaluate performance before and after the modifications.